Visual Studio is a powerful integrated environment (IDE) for developing software applications for Windows and the .NET Framework platform. Visual Studio (VS) supports different programming languages (for example C#, VB.NET, and C++) and different software development technologies (Win32, COM, ASP.NET, ADO.NET Entity Framework, Windows Forms, WPF, Silverlight, Windows Store apps and many more Windows and .NET technologies). It offers a powerful integrated environment for writing code, compiling, executing, debugging and testing applications, designing user interface (forms, dialogs, web pages, visual controls, and others), data and class modeling, running tests and hundreds of other functions.
IDE means “integrated development environment” – a tools where you write code, compile it, run it, test it, debug it, etc. and everything is integrated into a single place. Visual Studio is typical example of development IDE.
Visual Studio Express has several editions (for Desktop, for Web, for Windows 8 and others). If you want to write C# code following the content of this book, you may use Visual Studio Express for Desktop or check whether you have a free license of the full Visual Studio from your University or organization. Many academic institutions (like Sofia University and Telerik Software Academy) provide free Microsoft DreamSpark accounts to their students to get licensed Windows, Visual Studio, SQL Server and other development tools.
Visual Studio has several windows that we will explore (see the figure below):
As we have seen, in theory, we can do without Visual Studio, but in practice that is not a good idea. The work required compiling a big project, finding all the errors in the code and performing numerous other actions would simply take too much time without Visual Studio.
On the other hand, Visual Studio is not a free software developing environment (the full version). Many people cannot afford to buy the professional version (this is also true for small companies and some people engaged in programming).
This is why there are some alternatives to Visual Studio (except VS Express Edition), which are free and can handle the same tasks relatively well.
SharpDevelop
One alternative is SharpDevelop (#Develop). We can find it at the following Internet address:http://www.icsharpcode.NET/OpenSource/SD/. #Develop is an IDE for C# and is developed as an open-source project. It supports the majority of the functionalities offered in Visual Studio 2012 but also works in Linux and other operating systems. We will not review it in details but you should keep it in mind, in case you need a C# development environment and Visual Studio is not available.
MonoDevelop
MonoDevelop is an integrated software development environment for the .NET platform. It is completely free (open source) and can be downloaded at http://monodevelop.com. With MonoDevelop, we can quickly and easily write fully functional desktop and ASP.NET applications for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. It also enables programmers to easily transfer projects created in Visual Studio to the Mono platform and make them functional in other platforms.
IDE means “integrated development environment” – a tools where you write code, compile it, run it, test it, debug it, etc. and everything is integrated into a single place. Visual Studio is typical example of development IDE.
Visual Studio Express has several editions (for Desktop, for Web, for Windows 8 and others). If you want to write C# code following the content of this book, you may use Visual Studio Express for Desktop or check whether you have a free license of the full Visual Studio from your University or organization. Many academic institutions (like Sofia University and Telerik Software Academy) provide free Microsoft DreamSpark accounts to their students to get licensed Windows, Visual Studio, SQL Server and other development tools.
Visual Studio has several windows that we will explore (see the figure below):
- Start Page – from the start page we can easily open any of our latest projects or start a new one, to create our first C# program or to get help how to use C#.
- Code Editor – keeps the program’s source code and allows opening and editing multiple files.
- Error List – it shows the errors in the program we develop (if any). We learn how to use this window later when we compile C# programs in Visual Studio.
- Solution Explorer – when no project is loaded, this window is empty, but it will become a part of our lives as C# programmers. It will show the structure of our project – all the files it contains, regardless if they are C# code, images or some other type of code or resources.
- Properties – holds a list of the current object’s properties. Properties are used mainly in component-based programming, e.g. when we develop WPF, Windows Store or ASP.NET Web Forms application.
As we have seen, in theory, we can do without Visual Studio, but in practice that is not a good idea. The work required compiling a big project, finding all the errors in the code and performing numerous other actions would simply take too much time without Visual Studio.
On the other hand, Visual Studio is not a free software developing environment (the full version). Many people cannot afford to buy the professional version (this is also true for small companies and some people engaged in programming).
This is why there are some alternatives to Visual Studio (except VS Express Edition), which are free and can handle the same tasks relatively well.
SharpDevelop
One alternative is SharpDevelop (#Develop). We can find it at the following Internet address:http://www.icsharpcode.NET/OpenSource/SD/. #Develop is an IDE for C# and is developed as an open-source project. It supports the majority of the functionalities offered in Visual Studio 2012 but also works in Linux and other operating systems. We will not review it in details but you should keep it in mind, in case you need a C# development environment and Visual Studio is not available.
MonoDevelop
MonoDevelop is an integrated software development environment for the .NET platform. It is completely free (open source) and can be downloaded at http://monodevelop.com. With MonoDevelop, we can quickly and easily write fully functional desktop and ASP.NET applications for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. It also enables programmers to easily transfer projects created in Visual Studio to the Mono platform and make them functional in other platforms.
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